Describe what an organization needs to do first to develop strategies for addressing customer involvement in service delivery.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The company must define customers' roles. It must determine what type of participation is desirable from customers and how they wish to participate. Identifying the current level of participation is a good starting point. This will depend, at least partially, on the nature of the service itself. The service may require only the customer's presence (a concert, for example), or it may require moderate levels of input from the customer in the form of effort or information (a haircut), or it may require the customer to cocreate the service outcome (fitness training). The organization may decide that it is satisfied with the existing level of customer participation, or it may choose to increase or decrease the level of customer participation. Once the desired level of participation (from both the customer and the firm's perspectives) is clear, the organization can define more specifically what the customer's role and tasks entail.